


Monsters

by rangerhitomi



Series: Prisoners of Fate [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Prisoners of Fate AU, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6481252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prisoners of Fate AU. Vector visits Durbe in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make sense unless you've read Prisoners of Fate - it is a scene I wrote before deciding it didn't fit in the story directly, but I still thought was worth sharing. Takes place between chapters 68-69.

The cell door opened, and Durbe reluctantly pulled himself to a sitting position.

It had been four days, or maybe five, and it seemed it was finally time for a visitor.

He waited, eyes closed, for the stroke of a claw against his face, the familiar taunts whispered in his ear. The loose chains tying him to the wall tightened until he could barely lift his arms to his shoulders. He convulsed violently as a soft, distinctly human hand brushed his cheek instead and a high, breathy voice crooned “Good morning, Durbie.”

His eyes snapped open and he found himself looking into a pair of vividly violet eyes – Vector’s eyes – peering from under a mop of orange hair. Durbe’s breath caught in his throat as he realized he had never seen Vector’s human form before. It was slender and young – much younger looking than Durbe’s own form, even childlike.

But the look in those eyes was anything but childlike.

Durbe trembled uncontrollably. Between his nerves, his starvation and dehydration, his lack of sleep, the cold—he couldn’t help it.

“Haven’t you destroyed me enough?” His voice was winded, like the sound of paper rustling.

“Mmmmmm…” Vector drew out the sound as he sat next to Durbe, their shoulders and thighs touching. Durbe couldn’t resist the urge to pull away from Vector, but the emperor followed his movement, and there was no room for Durbe to move any farther away. He was trapped, chained to the wall, and completely at Vector’s mercy. “Nah.” He chuckled and patted Durbe’s cheek. “You know me better than that.”

Durbe tensed.

“You look anxious,” Vector said casually. “Too bad Miza isn’t here to calm you down; I hear that fucking relieves stress. Was that how you held it together so well for so long? ‘Mizael, I’m so sad and stressed, come fuck me’?”

“Shut up,” Durbe rasped.

“Like, it would explain how you let yourself go after he died,” Vector continued as though Durbe hadn’t spoken. “No more Mizael, all that stress, no outlet. I mean,” he laughed, “was he at least a _good_ fuck?”

“When will you be satisfied, Vector?”

“I probably won’t.” Vector stretched, pressing his elbow deliberately into Durbe’s face. “I’m going to miss you, Doobs. Now I’ll have to find someone else to screw with. Maybe Illy,” he said thoughtfully, leaning his elbow on Durbe’s shoulder. “She’s been a paranoid wreck lately. Just my type.”

“Why are you here?” Durbe tried to put some force behind the demand, but it came out weary. His voice didn’t sound like his own.

Vector pinched his cheek between two fingernails. Durbe flinched. “Just wanted to offer a chance for you to renounce your sins before you die.”

“How human of you,” Durbe spat, and the grin vanished from Vector’s childish face. He wrapped a surprisingly strong hand around Durbe’s throat, slammed his head against the wall, and squeezed, cutting off Durbe’s air supply. Yet through his hazy vision, his hazy thoughts, his instinctual need to pry Vector off so he could breathe, Durbe hoped this was the end.

But almost as though reading Durbe’s mind, Vector let go, and Durbe’s head hit the stone wall again.  

“My god,” Vector whispered, and he laughed. The high sound echoed around the tiny room and paralyzed Durbe. “You almost had me do it.” He clapped his hand to his forehead. “God! You are such a weak, cowardly bastard, Durbe!”

Durbe’s head throbbed; he was so lightheaded he could barely see. He was tempted to close his eyes, and maybe he did, because he felt Vector’s fingers on his chin, snapping his head back to face Vector.

“No, no, Durbe. I’m not done with you just yet.”

“What more do you want?” Durbe whispered.

“I want to know how you got into the Dragoon Village,” Vector said, speaking slowly and clearly. “Tell me.”

Durbe gave a wispy laugh. “That's one secret you will never know.”

Vector’s fingernails dug into Durbe’s chin now, but he seemed to realize he was taking Durbe’s bait, took a deep breath, and flexed his fingers, loosening his grip. “Obstinate as always.”

“You won’t kill me,” Durbe said weakly, “and nothing you do or say will cause me to hurt worse than I already am.”

“Oh _Durbe_ ,” Vector said with a twisted smile, “you underestimate me.”

He put his hand in the pocket of his robes and Durbe knew what he was doing before he pulled out the lapis.

His soul.

“Oh god,” he whispered.

“You know,” Vector said conversationally, his finger a hair’s breadth from the surface of the gem, “it’s fascinating to me that this one gem contains two souls. Two completely worthless souls. But, I suppose a half and a half do make a whole, eh?”

“He wasn’t worthless.” Durbe’s voice was stronger now. He fixed his eyes on the gem. His soul was in Vector’s hands, the energy close enough to Durbe now that he could feel its faint tingle. He longed to feel it one last time, untainted by Vector’s filthy touch.

“To _you_ perhaps.” Vector shrugged and pulled his finger away. “It’s funny, that the only one who bothered to befriend the nobody was the other nobody. Durbe, the filthy, unread child from the desert, and Mizael, the unwanted, incomplete freak – you were perfect for each other. No wonder he only liked you.”

“Mizael was my friend because I offered him my friendship,” Durbe retorted. “He would have accepted the friendship of anyone who looked at him for who he was – a loyal friend, an ally—“

“A lover?” Vector said shrewdly.

Durbe clenched his jaw for a moment before replying. “Mizael meant everything to me.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” Vector said with a wave of his hand. “Fitting, that the monster fell in love with the only one who showed him compassion. But answer me this, Durbe—had _I_ extended my hand to him first, would he have fallen in love with _me_ instead?”

The chains clattered as Durbe reached for Vector’s neck, to wrap his fingers around it and throw his head into the wall, all fatigue and weakness from his four day imprisonment in a cold, damp cell without food or water vanishing as pure hatred surged through him. The chains tethered to the wall tightened just inches from his intended destination, and a maniacal grin appeared on Vector’s face as he gripped Durbe’s thin wrists and leaned close again.

“Hit a nerve, didn’t I?” he whispered, and his face was so close Durbe could feel Vector’s warm breath condensing on his cold skin. “He didn’t love you because you were his soulmate; he loved you because you were literally the only creature on the earth that showed him compassion. He was desperate to be loved, no matter how shitty you treated him, no matter how much he resented you, no matter how many lies you told him to his face. No, it was because you looked at him with something other than disgust, and he seized that opportunity because it was the best he was ever going to get.”

Durbe’s hands clenched so tightly that his nails drew blood; he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing freely. “Stop,” he whispered.

“He settled for you.” Vector laughed quietly in Durbe’s ear. “How does that feel, Doobles? Being so worthless, being such a piece of scum that the only one who will have you is a monster that’s settling for you because no one else wants it.”

The words hurt, Durbe realized, but they hurt worse because they were things he often thought about himself. How many times had he looked at his face in the mirror and not recognized the eyes staring back at him? How many times had he touched Mizael, had Mizael touched him, and truly believed with all his soul that he didn’t deserve to be loved that way? How many times had he thought of his family and village and how ashamed they were of him, so much that their souls prowled the desert for eternity, seeking his blood?

He _was_ a monster.

“You say that what you did was for your people, as if they aren’t also our people,” Vector continued. “As if you are somehow superior to the rest of us. And you flaunted our laws, finding clever loopholes around them that nobody seemed to notice but me, because humble _Durbe_ is a model of integrity and morality.” He laughed. “Ah, but while you were busy pretending to be an altruist, I figured you out. You would have _Barians_ and _humans_ live together, all in the name of ending poverty and disease; you would like to see if we can _reproduce_ with them. Humans war with us because we’re different from them, because they think we’re devils, reincarnations of the worst humanity ever had to offer. You can sit on your throne and tell humans and Barians to get along and make babies but the fact is, Durbe, we can’t. No human will ever love a Barian, and no Barian will ever love a human. I can't figure out why you thought they ever would.”

“Congratulations,” Durbe whispered, body trembling so violently it ached. “You’ve figured me out. Are you done?”

Vector stroked Durbe’s cheek with the back of a finger. “I could make you writhe in pain but you’ll be freed from it when you die. I know Mizael believed in an afterlife. If there is one, he is surely waiting for you. You are, after all, his _other half_. I wouldn’t know, but I understand that when two Barians complete a soul transfer, their souls are literally merged. Two souls inhabiting the same body. You probably felt like your entire purpose was fulfilled when you and Miza became one.” He laughed quietly, a chilling, high-pitched laugh that paralyzed Durbe. He held Durbe’s gem up and scratched the surface with a fingernail.

Lightning exploded through Durbe’s body; he couldn’t stifle his scream any more than Vector could suppress his mirth.

“Does it feel good, my favorite little Barian?” he cackled. “Want me to do it again?”

“No,” Durbe choked. “Stop—“ He screamed again as Vector dragged his finger over the gem a second time. _This_ was his Hell; being dead would be a paradise. The chains rubbed his wrists raw as he struggled to break free of the torture Vector inflicted upon him.

“Beg me!”

Tears spilled from Durbe’s face. He hugged the wall, knees pulled tightly to his chest. “Please,” he sobbed, “please—“ His scream, this time, was punctuated by agonized sobbing, the word _please, please, please_ escaping his mouth over and over and over and over and—

It stopped. There was silence, except for Durbe’s sobs, except for the _please_ , _please, please_ that barely slipped from his lips on a whisper of his breath. And then there was the clinking of chains, and Durbe collapsed to the stone floor.

The humiliation couldn’t have been worse, Durbe tried to convince himself as he lay twitching on the floor, still bound loosely to the wall, but that was before Vector pet his head like he was consoling a child.

“Do you know why I hate you, Durbe?” He idly wiped a few stray tears from Durbe’s cheek. “Because you threw away the chance to be one of the greatest lords who ever lived, all for a fucking freak and two outcasts.”

 _Is that why you killed them,_ Durbe wanted to say, but each breath he took caused him immense pain.

Again, as though reading Durbe’s mind, Vector smiled down at him and shook his head. “ _You_ killed them,” Vector replied soothingly, stroking Durbe’s filthy, matted hair. “You sent them to their deaths, Durbe. If you hadn’t gotten too nosy, too close to an inconvenient truth, Alit and Gilag need never have died.” He leaned close, pressing his lips to Durbe’s ear. Durbe nearly vomited. “And I’m sure Mizael need never have died either, but that’s the price he paid for being loyal to a selfish monster like you.”

He stood, looking down on Durbe. What a sight he must have been, Durbe reflected hazily, the once proud lord reduced to begging not to have his soul violated, chained and filthy on a frozen floor in a dungeon of the same palace he had once sat atop. And Vector must have reached the same conclusion.

“You disgust me,” he said, and stomped his foot on Durbe’s stomach before leaving the dungeons, leaving behind the Barian whose soul he had crushed, whose body he had broken, as that poor, defeated Barian crawled to the corner and prayed for death.


End file.
